Timing is everything, whether it’s an obscure ’80s song that finally finds its moment decades later on Stranger Things or a highly specific tool that was way too ahead of its time.
U.K.-based gear brand MetMo has made it their business to dig up relics from the past to give them new life and relevance in today’s landscape. Its latest, and possibly most promising, is a wrench-based multi-tool whose origins began 113 years ago, when machinery and technology just weren’t ready for it yet.
A Ghost of a Good Idea
In 1912, a Connecticut inventor named J. Anderson filed patent no. 1,070,656 with the U.S. Patent Office for a double-ended parallel wrench. The design was great on paper, with two sets of jaws at either end of a central pivot, engineered to grip parallel rather than arc like a standard crescent wrench. It was granted in 1913, briefly distributed by Stanley Tools, and then, somewhere around 1915, it quietly disappeared. The casting tolerances of the era made the tight-fitting parallel jaws expensive and clunky in practice, and simpler wrenches won out. Anderson’s concept became a historical footnote.
More than a century later, a MetMo designer found one of these original Triplet Grips at a flea market. The rest was history, again.
The Leeds Standard
If you’ve been following MetMo since the Cube, their first product and the world’s first desk toy produced with wire EDM, you already know how they think. The Leeds-based team (short for “Metal in Motion”) has built its entire identity around resurrecting early 20th-century patents that were killed by the manufacturing limits of their era, then rebuilding them from scratch with CNC precision, premium metals, and a thoughtful design. The Fractal Vise revived an Austrian clamping patent from 1913. The Driver line traces back to a Conrad Baumann ratchet concept from the 1920s. Each product is equal parts functional tool and mechanical history lesson.
The Pocket Grip is the natural convergence of that lineage. It takes Anderson’s double-ended silhouette and assigns a specific job to every available surface, borrowing directly from MetMo’s own fractal jaw technology developed for the Fractal Vise.
Six Functions, Zero Wasted Real Estate
The Pocket Grip runs 3.75″ long, 1.75″ wide, and a remarkably thin 0.4″ thick, which can disappear in your pocket, no issue. The aluminum version tips the scales at just under 3oz on the lighter end, with a stainless steel model also available at around 5oz. The titanium version is somewhere in between that at 3.65oz. Despite the diminutive size, MetMo has packed in six distinct functions: a parallel clamp wrench, pliers, hex driver, clamp, tap holder, and, on the stainless steel variant, a hardened wire snipper.
The central pivot from Anderson’s original patent is now a machined 1/4″ hex drive for standard bits, turning the structural necessity of the old design into a T-style driver with some real leverage. The adaptive jaws are the headliner, staying parallel up to 20mm and capable of clamping irregular shapes like seized fittings, rusty nails, or 3D-printed parts that standard clamps would be too overkill for. Maximum clamping force via the TR6x2 lead screw is 21kg with just finger pressure alone.
Elsewhere, the V-groove is perfect for 3-6mm square drive tools like taps and drill bits. The plier jaws at the opposite end open to 17mm and are fitted with serrated, hardened teeth. And the jaws across all versions are machined from 17-4 PH stainless steel, heat-treated to Rockwell C 45 hardness, with replaceable jaw sets should you ever need them. We should also mention that the wire snipping capability is exclusive to the stainless steel version. If you go aluminum or titanium for weight savings, you’re giving that up.
Spec Sheet
Model: MetMo Pocket Grip
Number of Tools: 6 (5 on aluminum/titanium without snips)
Tools Included: Parallel clamp wrench, pliers, hex driver, clamp, tap holder, wire snips (stainless only)
Body Materials: Hard-anodized 7075-T651 aluminum, Grade 5 titanium, or stainless steel
Jaw Material: 17-4 PH (H900) hardened stainless steel, 45 HRC
Dimensions: 3.75 x 1.75 x 0.4 in
Weight: 2.95oz aluminum / 3.65oz titanium / 4.97oz stainless steel
Pricing & Availability
The Pocket Grip is currently live on Kickstarter, where it’s already well past its funding goal. The aluminum version starts at £99 (~$115) for early backers, with a retail price of £124 (~$167). Titanium pledges begin at £199 (~$231), retailing at £234 (~$314). The stainless steel “Snip Grip” sits at the top of the range with pricing in line with the titanium tier. Shipping is projected for December.
Recap
MetMo Pocket Grip Multi-Tool
MetMo’s new Pocket Grip is a six-function EDC multi-tool built around a 113-year-old wrench patent that never got its due, now fully realized in aluminum, titanium, or stainless steel.
